


Do not go gentle into that good night

by LunnarChild



Series: mr. amnesia, the antichrist, and the angelic reject [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Humor, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Minor Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, arbitrary timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 21:14:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6873541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunnarChild/pseuds/LunnarChild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The antichrist, the daughter of an angel – for all intent and purpose – and the son of a righteous man walk into a bar. Well, dear God, that sounds like the beginning of a very bad joke.”</p><p>“Which part? The trio or the punchline?”</p><p>“Both.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do not go gentle into that good night

**Author's Note:**

> Dylan Thomas, 1914 - 1953
> 
> Do not go gentle into that good night,  
> Old age should burn and rave at close of day;  
> Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

“The antichrist, the daughter of an angel – for all intent and purpose – and the son of a righteous man walk into a bar. Well, dear God, that sounds like the beginning of a very bad joke.”

            “Which part? The trio or the punchline?”

            “Both.”

.

.

.

“Hey! At least I didn’t sleep with the antichrist – no offense.”

            “None taken.”

            “That was one time.” Both boys arched their brows in unison as Ben’s face morphed in disbelief.

            Castiel looks like he’s going to have a conniption at the realization and both the Winchester brothers look like gaping fish. It’s kind of hilarious.

.

.

.

You know good things never last, never in this world.

            The past will always find you and all you can hope is that you’re strong enough to last through the storm.

.

.

.

Jesse feels it before word gets around. The devil is back in his cage and the apocalypse comes to a screeching halt. He tries not to think about how he knows just for the sake of his sanity. Somedays he can’t even recall what it was like to be nine years old and/or human.  The concept is one and the same in his head.

            Of course, isolation has a habit of doing that to people. But he, Jesse Turner, was never just anyone.

            He’s half human and half demon, not one or the other but stuck somewhere between and in a class of his own. When he was younger, he didn’t quite understand it – not in the strictest sense.  All he knew was that he was dangerous. Lucifer might be gone, but that didn’t change the blood that ran through his veins. He could never go home, never see his parents again, go to school or hang out with his meager group of friends. He was on the run from demons and angels alike.

            When it gets bad, he’s tired and weary and all he wants to do is give up he thinks of the man in the trench coat, solemn face, sad eyes, and a glittering dagger. Sometimes he thinks that he wished that he – the angel – killed him then and there, saving him the trouble of living. It would have been easer, he thinks. That it might have been painless, quick.

            He then thinks of Sam Winchester and wonders if he made the right call all those years ago.

.

.

.

Jesse learns pretty quickly that words for him have power. He learns to be straight forward and blunt in his meanings. He learns to be careful and double check the things he knows. Jesse doesn’t want a repeat of Alliance, Nebraska.

            Words take on a whole new terror when he gets to know Claire after he discovers his own feels about Novak. Words like “I love you,” became as dangerous as “I wish.”

            It kills him a little and hopes that Claire can read his actions than his non-existent words. However, she has never been about subtext.

.

.

.

The first time Jesse Turner sees Claire Novak, it’s in a rundown bar in the middle of nowhere. He thinks he finally gets what people talk about when they say a particular person looks like an angel. Or at least a better understanding.

            She’s an underage angel in a leather jacket sipping on a beer with a faraway look in her deep blue eyes. It reminds him of the Australia coast, a place that’s the closest thing he’s called home since he was nine. The waters were always blue with wild crashing waves trying to drown brave surfers. There was this one beach where off in the distance, it looked like a storm was always brewing. Her eyes reminded him of that.  She doesn’t radiate power or angelic holiness but there’s something about the way the dingy lights reflect off the golden color of her hair like a broken halo. Or maybe it’s the subtle hint of the hard edge to her frame, jagged and a little broken but rebuilt a little stronger than before. Jesse thinks she could smite a demon in a single glance and maybe, just maybe it would be worth to be smite-ed by her if she would just look his way.

            Calling Claire Novak an angel would probably be Jesse’s greatest compliment.

            He doesn’t learn her name till a few months later when she saves his ass from a particularly annoying demon that’s been chasing him since Charleston. He was right about calling her an angel. She kicks down the door revealing her dark silhouette against the backdrop of golden sunlight with a silver sword in hand and a pistol full of rock salt in the other. There’s righteous vengeance in her eyes that promises pain. Jesse thinks he might be a little in love.

            _So this is how the antichrist falls for an angel_ , is the first thought that pops into his head.

.

.

.

Claire was born without wings. It wasn’t until she learned the truth about angels, as one by one her parent’s disappeared to places unknown far beyond her reach that she learns to make a pair of her own.

.

.

.

When Jesse is thirteen he fashions himself a pair of leather bands that latches on to each wrist and grows with him as he gets older. He can’t take them off. Only someone else with a pure heart can. They act like limiters to his powers, prevents him from accidental mishaps of epic proportions. It makes him more vulnerable to demons and angels, but there’s a comfort in knowing that there are limits to his powers.

            It almost makes him feel human. _Almost_.

.

.

.

Claire finds Jesse first. He doesn’t say much which annoys her to no end. She finds herself babbling about the most randomness things in an attempt to draw him into a conversation.  She thinks she sounds like an idiot.

            What she doesn’t know is that he loves the sound of her voice. Sharp wit, cutting words, and all. She is the self-expression he can never have and he’s grateful that she lets him stick around.

            He dreads the day she finds out about the monster underneath.

.

.

.

Ben makes the parallel before she does. Jesse is the Bucky to Claire’s Steve. Claire honestly doesn’t know how to feel about that.

.

.

.

The first time she meets Ben, she’s almost twenty. He’s sitting on a bench in a park sometime around midnight with both hands gripping the hilt of a glimmering dagger. The way he bends over the thing makes it look almost like he’s praying.

            The first thing she really notices is the blade. Its wicked sharp even in the dim lighting and something about sends shivers down her spine and raises the hairs on her arms. For a minute, she wonders if he’s a demon. It doesn’t make much sense but Claire would swear in that moment that the light reflecting off the blade made it look like it winked at her. Needless to say, it creeped the fuck out of her.

            It’s only when he looks up that Claire decides that he isn’t a demon. No demon could look that miserable, that guilty. He looked like someone told him he was the reason his mother had cancer or something equally horrible. For a minute he looks familiar, an echo of a memory lingering in the prominent line of his jaw, in the slant of his nose, the sharp corners of his lips. It’s mostly his eyes; something tells her that the guy in front of her should have green eyes instead of brown.

            She holds out her hand, “I’m Claire.”

            “Ben,” his voice is deep which reverberates in his chest like grinding rocks. He should definitely have green eyes.

.

.

.

For Ben, trying to remember his childhood was like trying to remember a dream. There are pieces he knows and other’s that are more like impressions. For the longest time, he thinks it’s because of the accident when he was twelve.

            He got out pretty much unscathed but his mom was pretty banged up. The doctors say that she should have died, they called it a miracle.  Ben doesn’t agree but he doesn’t say anything as the doctors shake their head in disbelief. He doesn’t question it either. It’s only a couple years later that he realized he couldn’t remember an entire year of personal events. He remembers going to school, to baseball practice, and having dinner with his mom. But something was missing that he couldn’t put a finger on.

            There were other things that seemed odd as well. He knew his way around an engine. Could listen to a motor and know exactly what was wrong with it. The only problem was that he couldn’t ever remember someone teaching it to him. It was like he woke up one day with all the information preprogrammed in his brain. It wasn’t as creepy as it should have been.

            He carried salt in his back pocket like a safety blanket. When he was sixteen he buys an old iron Swiss army knife at a garage sale. He hides it from his mom for a successful two months before she finds it in the crack of his bed frame.

            He knew the car that hit him and his mom; ’67 black impala, though he couldn’t remember anyone telling him that. It was like memorizing a state capital, arbitrary but semi-important.

            He remembers the driver: tall white male, with military cropped hair that was more brown than blond, green eyes, and a look on his face like he had just come from hell and back. He had a deep gruff voice which choked with reigned in emotion. He wore a leather jacket and heavy duty leather boots. He didn’t look either of them in the eye as he pushed out an apology.

            The memory is vivid in Ben’s mind years later when _Team Freewill 2.0_ is way in over their heads, sufficiently and excessively bloody and battered when the Winchesters arrive in a blaze of rock salt and holy water. He doesn’t know how they got there or how they knew where they were but in that moment, Ben is officially grateful.

            It’s only when Claire make’s a smart-handed comment about timing that the brothers even known that they were there. The brothers blink twice, keeping one eye on their surroundings before they get close enough to check her wounds. When the shorter of the two looks at Ben, he knows exactly who he is.

            The words tumble out of his mouth before he can wrap his head around the odds, “You hit my mother.”

            Both brothers freeze at the acquisition. The tall one that looks like a moose – Sam? Ben think’s he heard from Claire – really _looks_ at him while the shorter one just simply stares like he is reliving his worst nightmare.

            _In a way, I guess he has_ , Ben muses. Ben doesn’t know the half of it.

.

.

.

The first time Ben meets Jesse Turner, he immediately dislikes the other boy on the spot. The feeling is mutual. Claire liked to joke around that Ben had the demon version of a Spidey-sense. An apparent by-product from Clara’s deal with the crossroad demon, though it’s only at its strongest with his demonic (ex-?)girlfriend.

            Whenever Jesse appears his demon sense goes off like police siren that gives him a raging headache. He puts two and two together pretty quickly but doesn’t say anything to Claire. Ben doesn’t know why Jesse hangs around her, but what he does know is that Jesse would sooner cut off his own arm than put Claire in intentional danger.

            It’s something similar for Jesse. The boy – Ben – was familiar though he couldn’t put his finger on it. All it made him do is narrow his eyes and strain his concentration. But it isn’t just his physical appearance that disturbs Jesse; there was just something about _Ben_ that set his teeth on edge. It wasn’t angelic and it wasn’t entirely demonic either. Jesse didn’t know how to make heads or tails of it.

            It isn’t until that the two boys bond over surviving Jesse’s first encounter with Clara that they come to a familial truce.

.

.

.

Neither Claire nor Jesse understands Clara. Or rather, they don’t understand Ben’s association with Clara the she-demon from figurative hell. Evidently she had never been, she turned topside.

            The thing that they immediately notice is her dagger which she is seen often twirling around. It’s silver like starlight which is odd because the blade reflects dark shadows in the light. It also looks like the exact same knife Ben has; only this one was obviously more sinister in quality.

            If Ben’s blade gave Claire the he-be-je-bees then Clara’s was an acid trip from hell. Even Jesse stiffened at the sight of it. Only Ben seemed unaffected.

            At some point, Ben had pulled out his own blade subconsciously, his knuckles turning white as his grip tightened around the hilt.

            Not for the first time they wondered how the hell Ben got involved with a dame like this.

.

.

.

Not counting Claire’s personal angel on psychic-prayer-speed dial, Ben was the only one whose parent was still around and kicking. It was a source of tension for the group. Apparently he hasn’t called his mom in almost a year – it pissed both Claire and Jesse off immensely.

            If either of them could have their parent’s back they would renounce their current lives in a heartbeat. Ben had no excuse. At least he didn’t seem to have an excuse.

            They learned about the twenty-eight murders that he was suspected of doing with his nut-case girlfriend when he gets arrested during a job. About how for almost three months he couldn’t call home without alerting a state-wide PB on his whereabouts. About how he couldn’t face his mom after the fact, even just listening to her voice.

            Once the job is done, Ben is busted out of jail; they spend the car ride in silence. Ben doesn’t offer up any explanation as to why he is suspected of twenty-eight (and counting) gruesome murders. They can only speculate. The only thing Ben does say is that he didn’t do it.

            They don’t speak about parents for a long time.

.

.

.

Ben knows that Claire and Jesse don’t understand Clara. Clara was a piece of his past he couldn’t face. Was too weak to face.

            He knows that she has to be stopped and he had the only object that could put her down for good without severe consequences. The thought makes him physically sick. Ben wonders if this was part of the deal, an impulsion that prevented each party from killing the other when they had to. Logically, Clara had to die. She was a demon and that was that.

            Only Jesse was a demon, or at least not human and he didn’t need to die. That might be a stretch, but neither Claire nor Ben had the heart or mind to consider it. Jesse was their friend, a guardian angel from hell. He was family.

            Clara was different. She was what she was because of him. If he had died like he was supposed to then she wouldn’t be like this. If he died then she wouldn’t have taken that deal. Clara wasn’t just a demon in her body, she _was_ Clara. Clara was the demon. Every decision she made was her own, no one pressured her into doing anything and that was the thought that cut him the most.

            The knife grows heavy when she was near, a constant reminder of how this had to end. Not for the first time Ben wished that someone else could take his burden.

            Ben doesn’t know how to tell Claire or Jesse any of this.

.

.

.

There was never a choice when it came to Clara, only the illusion of choice. When she was human, he would screw the world two times over if it meant saving her life.

            When she was a demon, he couldn’t kill her. He couldn’t.

            When it was between Dean, a man he barely knew, and Clara – the love of his screwed up life – he never stood a chance. The reaction was impulsive, instinctual.

            Ben buries the blade into the body without a second thought. Tears streaming down his face as one apology after the next fell from his lips. Sticky, warm blood flowing over his hand. He pulls the dying form close to his chest. He might be praying or he might be screaming Ben isn’t sure which.

            Clara is dying in his arms, gasping, and bewildered. The thought Ben would choose him over her was unthinkable till it wasn’t. It had never even crossed her mind.

            Dean, alive and a little shaken, looks on with an unreadable expression on his face.

 .

.

.

The thing is Clara had fallen in love with Ben Braeden twice; once when she was human and the second when she wasn’t. Or at least, she loved him as much as a demon could.

            There was a certain kind of liberation that came with losing one’s soul and Clara wasn’t going to change for anyone. Not even Ben. Not after almost twenty years of playing the good little girl who went to church every Sunday. Clique as it might sound, a new Clara was in town and she was ready to paint it red.

            Ben had been there for the end and he had been there for her new beginning. It was fitting, in a way.

            When she was human, she was drawn to him. He was her first act of rebellion, dating someone who she knew was bad for her. There was a part of her that knew exactly how this was going to turn out. Before the demons, before the deal. Ben Braeden was danger of an entirely different type.

            He was also kind. He acted like an asshole without ever being one. He cared. She fell in love with him because he was always one surprise after the next. He made her feel human, real. She loved his puns and quirky little bits of trivia. She loved going on long drives in his souped-up car that he babied like his own child.

            Then came the accident and the deal and everything changed. She changed and so did he. She was a murder and a demon but he helped her. Promised to help her. He was unwavering in his loyalty. Even when she came back bloody, especially when she came back bloody and none of it was hers. The human part of her, shrinking in size every day, cried for him – making him an accomplice to her sins.

            It was never supposed to be this way.

            She lied whenever anyone asked why she hadn’t killed him already. It was counterproductive; it was the principle of the thing. She did not sell her soul; become a demon, only to kill the person she sold her soul for. It was part of that. It was also the way he pulled her close, the way he stroked her cheeks ever so gently with his thumbs in light of _everythin_ g. The way he could still make her heart race simultaneously in excitement and fondness. The way he pleaded for her to come back to him softly, that made her heart ache. Sometimes she almost wishes that she could.

 _Almost_ was never enough.

            He surprised her in the end. Like always. She only wished she had more time.

.

.

.

When the dead is done, Ben ends up with two sinister looking knives that he never wanted.

            He looks Dean in the eye and makes a promise that he’s going to find the demon bastard Clara made a deal with, and he was going to kill him. The only thing Dean does is nod saying, “I know.”

            Dean’s eyes never leave the twin daggers.

**Author's Note:**

> So I should mention that this would not be possible without the amazing queengallaghr who encouraged me to publish this. She also made an amazing edit for my Team Free Will 2.0 found here http://queengallaghr.tumblr.com/post/144466500622/mr-amnesia-the-antichrist-and-the-angelic  
> check it out.


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